Lightning rays are a constant threat for buildings, cellular antennas, and many other structures, to which great damage is caused, due to high electrical currents that they carry.
At the end of the eighteen century, Benjamin Franklin invented the lightning rod to attract the atmospheric discharges to ground, thus protecting, buildings and high structures from the damage caused by lightning rays. The lightning rod is characterized by a metallic rod sharpened at the superior end. The lightning rod is connected to a low resistance cable that goes to ground, thus dissipating an electrical discharge. In the field of the invention, the principal supposition is that the lightning ray is preferentially attracted by the lightning rod because an electrical field is formed with air ionization in the space around the lightning rod.
In 1918, Nikola Tesla described an invention in the U.S. Pat. No. 1,266,175 that is characterized by a rod which ends with blunt extensions that irradiate from the superior extreme of the rod, wherein said blunt extensions have a curvature that orientates the termination of each extension downward. According to Tesla, said invention prevents an attraction, departure, or electrical discharge from the atmosphere. Tesla explained, in the description of his patent, that the Franklin's sharpened rod, when ionizing air, augments attraction to lightning rays. In contrast, Tesla says that his invention prevents the electrical discharges because the downward oriented blunt terminations avoid formation of electrical fields and air ionization, thus minimizing, attraction to lightning rays. Tesla mentions that even in case of a lightning ray is attracted by the rod with blunt extensions, said rod is connected by means of a cable to ground, thus, dissipating the electrical discharge.
This patent application describes a new invention that conciliates the principles that have been assumed with respect to the Franklin's sharpened rod, with the theory that Tesla describes to explain how his rod with blunt extensions protects against lightning rays. Furthermore, the invention of this application describes an element that attenuates the electrical discharge.